Friday, May 30, 2008

First, the new postal match is up at Snowflakes in Hell, including a link to the targets. I'm going to make this one, dammit. Last one, I finally got to the range, took care of a couple of other things and then, to the detriment of the bugs flying around that were incinerated by some of the language used, discovered I'd left the damn targets at home.

Second, Ahab takes note of a Brady astroturf blog, and a post twisting words from the Bible to say "This means we should all give up guns." Which post disappeared: I wonder how many people had something to say to them about this bullcrap?

Rob Allen takes note of a friggin' moron who thinks it might have been better(or at least as good) to subdue a murderer by tackling him instead of shooting him:Query: Had this good samaritan tackled the shooter, would he be less of a hero? Had he struck the shooter over the head with a beer bottle, would he be less of a hero? There are plenty of other examples, but the point is the same.This reminds me of a friend who thinks guns are most 'unnecessary' for self-defense: she keeps a bokken next to the bed, and has it planned how she'll whack anyone who breaks in; first knee, then head. I think she's a fool on this: first, you have to let the bad guy get within your reach, which means if he's got a weapon you're in his reach. Second, you're planning on those two strokes both hitting and having the effect you desire. I figure on Murphy stepping in, which means A: I'm not letting some clown who breaks into my home get in reach of me if I can prevent it and B: I'm not counting on a couple of whacks with a stick(which could get tangled in/blocked by something) stopping the attacker; to borrow from a couple of commenters, I'll invoke Rule .357 or Rule 12-gauge, whichever is most available/appropriate.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

ELDORADO, Texas (CNN) — An 18-year-old who gave birth in state custody after she was incorrectly seized in a raid on a polygamist sect ranch says the state kept her in foster care in an effort to seize her baby. [...]

The state apparently agreed that Jessop was not a minor. A caseworker signed a statement saying Jessop gave her age as 18. Her birth certificate says so, along with a “bishop’s list” collected as evidence from the sect’s records.

There was also no denying she was weeks away from giving birth to her second child. And that, she believes, is why she wound up in foster care.

There's a number of other cases listed there. Oklahoma has the Department of Human Services, which has a Child Welfare Division. Which has had a number of cases ofCharging into a home and grabbing kids based on a 'tip' that either turned out to be false, or was phoned in by someone with a grudge, andNOT doing anything about a case despite many calls reporting abuse, until the kid winds up in the hospital or dead. After either of which there are usually whines and demands for more money 'so we can have enough people to deal with these things'.

Of course, we also have morons like Joe Biden(Plagiarist/Who cares where he's from) coming up with crap like this:

“Biden’s latest domestic violence bill is the National Domestic Violence Volunteer Attorney Network Act, which amends Biden’s Violence Against Women Act to create an extensive network of volunteer attorneys to help abused women. The attorneys would provide free legal help in forging divorce or separation agreements and in winning child custody…

[...]

The bill will enlist 100,000 volunteer attorneys to help purportedly abused women win custody of their children from their alleged abusers.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

to go to hell.He checked the tax disc and tyres on his Vauxhall Corsa but when he noticed the flag of St George on the parcel shelf he told Mr Smith to take it down.

Mr Smith, who works for G Plan Upholsterers on Hampton Park West, said: "He saw the flag and said it was racist towards immigrants and if I refused to take it down I would get a £30 fine.

"I laughed because I thought he was joking, but then I realised he was serious so I had to take it down straight away. I thought it was silly - it's my country and I want to show my support for my country."

Problem with that, Mr. Smith, is you live in a country where your lords have decided that you're not allowed to show support for your country. Because that's not Politically Correct and Sensitive.

If you haven't seen/heard of them, here's a picture:Looks a lot like the Kel-Tec P3AT, but there are, I'm told, enough differences to keep Ruger from facing any legal problems(there's a review with all the measurements here). Very thin, very light, it's definitely a pocket pistol in .380.

This one was recently bought and got a good shakedown. It was fired with a mix of ammo: some Speer Gold Dots, some Winchester Ranger, some Wolf Gold(all hollowpoints), some Monarch* ball and some American Eagle ball. There was one hitch, and that was in the first mag of the Winchester, the second round failed to feed: slingshotting the slide popped it in and everything after that went through without a hitch, total between 150-200 rounds.

The trigger was quite smooth, much like a well-tuned double-action revolver. I've fired a Kel-Tec, and this felt a bit different, a bit more comfortable to shoot, though it shared one thing: if you hold it like you would a 1911 or something bigger, your trigger finger runs into your thumb as you pull. The 'sights' are a very low bump in front and a small notch in back, and unless you put some paint or something on the front the thing disappears in dim light.

Accuracy was quite good for a pistol of this size/type. It was no problem keeping tight groups at ten feet, and at ten yards I could keep a magazine in a little larger than fist-size group in the upper chest of a silhouette. It ain't a bullseye pistol, folks, so this is very acceptable accuracy.

Overall, I liked it, and wouldn't mind having one. Especially this time of year, when concealing a compact 1911 can be a bit of a problem. Or as a backup gun any time of year.

*Monarch was the least-expensive brass case .380 I could find, and shot very well. It also seems to have the same headstamp as the Wolf Gold.

I'm back from visiting folks. Today, as I have to work tomorrow. So let's see a bit of what I missed the last couple of days...

CSI: Jersey doesn't quite make the grade, it would appear:‘Jim, I have now checked with Lenny,’ said the email. ‘The bone was sent to the UK to be dated. There is no scientific dispute regarding the fact that it is human.’

But as The Mail on Sunday revealed last week, the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, one of the world’s top bone-dating laboratories, had been telling Mr Harper forweeks it was not bone.

Further in Britain, things are still going to hell on a greased brass incline. First in loss of respect for life, and loss of understanding of one fact:Lack of respect for life,A teenage actor in the new Harry Potter film was stabbed to death in the street early yesterday in a row over a mobile phone.

Robert Knox, 18, who plays a trainee wizard in the movie, died trying to protect his 17-year-old brother Jamie from a frenzied knife attack outside a bar at around 1am.and lost understanding of an important fact,Robert’s 16-year-old cousin Vicky May said: ‘Rob had a great acting career ahead of him. He wasn’t violent, he wasn’t in any gang.

This wasn’t about gangs, this was about stupid people carrying knives.’Doesn't say anything about it, but wouldn't surprise me if the dirtbag is in a gang but what I'm after is the second: it's not 'stupid people carrying knives', it's evil people who don't care about the lives of others.

And while things like this are going on, we have the authorities wanting to cut down a tree, seeing a similar threat to discarded used-by-junkies need.es in the needles of the tree:‘Every effort is made in this day and age to prevent children playing with discarded syringe needles,’ a report stated.

‘Every effort must be made to prevent children coming into contact with these potentially, equally sharp needles.’Attaboy, just ignore the bullcrap you in some cases cause in peoples' lives, and threaten the tree. Real efficient, you people are.

Jeez.

Let's see, tornadoes and severe storms... Damn, in Mexico and South America looks like nine volcanoes erupting, and one up in the Aleutian Islands. That's something I still want to see someday, an erupting volcano. Just not from "We're all gonna die!" range as a pyroclastic flow comes down the slope.

And they're not really news, but Theo takes note of a new target stand(Only Available in Communist and Other Dictatorships), and an old story Barack "Don't talk about me!" Obama should pay attention to:Hillary Clinton goes to a primary school in New York to talk about the world. After her talk she offers a question time.One little boy puts up his hand. The Senator asks him what his name is?

'Kenneth.'

'And what is your question, Kenneth?'

'I have three questions:First - Whatever happened to the medical health care plan you were paid to develop during your husband's eight years in the office as President?Second - Why would you run for President after your husband shamed the office?Third - Whatever happened to all those things you took when you left the White House?'

Just then the bell rings for recess. Hillary Clinton informs the kids that they will continue after recess. When they resume, Hillary says,'Okay, where were we? Oh, that's right, question time. Who has aquestion?'

A different little boy puts his hand up. Hillary points to him and asks him what his name is.'Larry.'

'And what is your question, Larry?'

'I have five questions:First - Whatever happened to the medical health care plan you were paid to develop during your husband's eight years in the office as President?Second - Why would you run for President after your husband shamed the office?Third - Whatever happened to all those things you took when you left the White House?Fourth - Why did the recess bell go off 20 minutes early?Fifth - What happened to Kenneth?'

humorless jerks. Sort of like Barack Whoosis Obama.Party leaders accused the actors Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett yesterday of promoting crude, anti-Soviet propaganda in their new film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. They have urged Russian moviegoers to boycott the film and told Ford, 65, not to visit the country.Boo-frikkin'-ho, commies, suck it up. You lost.

And you really were a bunch of bloody-handed tyrants. Your own archives take note of it.

The party’s central committee called Steven Spielberg’s film an attempt to “slander Soviet Communists” and poison the young against them. It called Ford and Blanchett “capitalist puppets”.

“Our moviegoers are teenagers who are unaware of what happened in 1957,” said Sergei Malinkovich, the chief of the St Petersburg Communist Party chief. “They will go to the cinema and will be sure that in 1957 we made trouble for the United States and almost started a nuclear war. It’s rubbish.”Translation: "It's garbage, I tell you! Just because we tried to conquer the world and murdered millions and left a legacy that still has Russia screwed up, don't think we'll put up with you making us look bad!"

Hell, I'm going to have to create a new category, just for crap like this.

E-mail me

at elmtreeforge at att point net

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences. - C.S. Lewis

Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave. - Capt. Mal

A Rifleman’s Prayer:Oh Lord, I would live my life in freedom, peace and happiness, enjoying the simple pleasures of hearth and home. I would die an old, old man in my own bed, preferably of sexual overexertion.

But if that is not to be, Lord, if monsters such as this should find their way to my little corner of the world on my watch, then help me to sweep those bastards from the ramparts, because doing that is good, and right, and just.

And if in this I should fall, let me be found atop a pile of brass, behind the wall I made of their corpses. Geek with a .45

"He's Black Council,", I said.

"Or maybe stupid," Ebenezar countered.

I thought about it. "Not sure which is scarier."

Ebenezar blinked at me, then snorted. "Stupid, Hoss. Every time. Only so many blackhearted villains in the world, and they only get uppity on occasion. Stupid's everywhere, every day." Ebenezar McCoy

“A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition” ― Rudyard Kipling

This deprecation of individual freedom was objectionable to me. I am convinced now, as I was then, that man is an end because he is a child of God. Man is not made for the state; the state is made for man. To deprive man of freedom is to relegate him to the status of a thing, rather than elevate him to the status of a person. Man must never be treated as means to the end of the state; but always as an end within himself." Dr. M.L. King Jr.